Hustle Awards 2026 Special: Julian Smith, winner of the Most Innovative Tech Award

0:01Welcome back to The Serial Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Anna Wood. In today's episode, I speak with Julian Smith, the Managing Director of Chargemate. We discussed innovating within the EV market, the importance of IP and patents for startups, and winning the Most Innovative Tech Award at the Hustle Awards 2026. Let's dig in. Welcome to the podcast today. How are you? I'm very good, Anna. How are you? I'm very good, thank you. Great to have you on. So we begin every podcast episode with our signature icebreaker question, which is what is your favourite breakfast cereal and why? That would be crunching up cornflakes.

0:43It's the only cereal that I'll actually eat, so not particularly a favourite, it's just the only one. Yeah, fair enough. It's quite a solid choice, I'd say. So would you be able to introduce yourself and tell me about your background? Yeah, I'm Julian from ChargeMate, background, going back to the early stages as a YTS trainee in Plum Centre in the Builders Merchant Market. I ended up there because that was the last vacancy that was on the board, so it was only one there, so that's what I was given. And I went from there into water management, water temperature management and control, and then ended up back in the world of bathrooms with the first online bathroom retailer of any scale, plumbwell.co.uk, which a friend of mine had started.

1:35I joined that business for 18 months to turn it into profit, which we did, and we sold that into the corporate world. And then I found myself working for Grafton Group, PLC, who we'd sold to as their supply chain director for the Far East with a huge warehouse and cross-stop facility in Shanghai. A team of people out there buying all sorts and everything. And after five years in the corporate world, I decided I'd like to get back to something a bit smaller where you can make a decision without having 28 people around the table, which was very infuriating. And we set up our own bathroom business in Manchester.

2:14and over three and a half years we built that from four staff to 78 and i got to a run rate of about 12 million or so and then we exited the business and then found myself in the world of ev and the world of ev is um i i bought a hybrid bmw installed a charger at home and one at my office and then from there really it was a case of um the the experience of ev charging in the early days back in 2017 wasn't anywhere near as good as it is today i was a bit frustrated so i i sent my team in china a task to go and find out where these things are made and find me all the manufacturers which they duly did in about three days um we went to see them and that's how our journey in EV started.

3:07We registered the Chargmate name in 2017 and thought that we could become one of the biggest installation companies in EV in the UK. And like every business, you start off with a business plan, which is very quickly thrown out of the window. As anybody who's ever tried to run a startup would tell you, ours went out of the window. We tried several adaptions, but unfortunately we then decided that installation wasn't for us so we came out of the installation market in May 25 and we thought we'll just focus on on the products that's my strength and background from my career rather than electrical installation and to be fair since we've pulled out of that market now the businesses took on a whole new lease of life our product range is becoming widely accepted now we're seeing our product now featured uh by people and specified by people like rolls-royce porsche audi um post office british telecom uh network rail the name of a few so it's really exciting and um yeah uh we're now aiming to build a smallish team of people um and expand our products now internationally we've already got customers in canada us uae australasia and europe but we've got a lot more to do so it's a really exciting uh point in our lives and last week and picking up the hustle award for most innovative tech was was amazing it's our first award and i can't tell you how thrilled we are to to you know to receive it the recognition the validation is is amazing and i've just i've seen so much activity on our socials the team here are still talking about it and this has got pride of place in our office amazing that is good to hear and such an interesting journey and we will move on to the um kind of questions about the hostels in a bit but what was that jump like going from kind of the world of plumbing to the world of evs i think for me having a supply chain background i'm not too bothered what's in the box uh i mean as a young child i had a very um uh intuitive interest in taking things apart i could never get them back together mind and um uh so i'm not particularly a strong engineer but i'm very good at envisaging what something should look like bringing people together very good at the supplier relationship side so moving from bathrooms to ev wasn't a big leap sounds it but it wasn't really in terms of the manufacturing sources and and and the route to market very very similar so i just think um it was logical i think in the bathroom market the barrier to entry is fairly low and i think you know as the judges spotted uh with our ebq product uh that we're very proud of the barrier to entry is a lot higher you know there's a lot more risk in the design and the installation of the products that we had to do a lot of testing third-party validation the fantastic team at the university of manchester school of engineering um they were amazing um and also then the validation that we've had from industry So the barrier to entry is a lot higher.

6:36And the product is patent pending. And we've just extended our patent now to a worldwide PCT wrapper. So we've invested a lot of money. Every penny that this business is currently spending, operational cash flow just goes straight back in. There's nothing coming out of this business. I've not paid myself a salary in three and a half years. So it's tricky. I'm planning to sell something next year and break the door and actually go on the payroll. So it's going to happen at some point. Yes, definitely. So what exactly is Chargemate? What do you do there and what are you trying to achieve? Chargemate is an innovator in EV accessories.

7:21And that means accessories for installers. So we're looking squarely at the installer market. We've had three and a half years of being installers. And every product that we have that we've developed are three equations with our installers saying we could make this better. Surely we can do this better. and and and i think that's been something that uh we we built on the evq as a classic example where our installers in frustration we'd receive three precast concrete blocked but our own ev chargers in our car park here uh it's very very heavy to manage one of them was cracked on delivery so you then got to complain reorder it again you got on site we're delayed we couldn't finish it when we wanted to and we just thought you know there really is a better way of doing this there has to be and that idea was born and the ev cube idea the manufacturer of the ev cube was a um a contract manufacturing company that i dealt with firstly about 15 years ago so i already knew where to go and have this made and the fact that nobody in the market had made a product like that from this material um i was amazed at that to to realize that we were the first uh and and very very happy that we were and uh the idea that we could patent it and build that inherent value that comes from a pattern um because that's really what it's all about now yes so you mentioned earlier how you won the most innovative tech category at the hustle award so congratulations on that thank you the win was for the ev cube so could you talk a bit more about the tech and innovation behind it well the technical innovation is if you look at ev charger installation insurance companies are pushing for ev chargers not to be installed either inside or on external walls of buildings uh the there is a fire risk a lot of people would say and i would say that it is an overstated risk, however it can happen.

9:33So there is an advice guidance note out there that says you should only install EV chargers seven meters away from a building. That's quite a distance. So if you're going to install away from a building and you haven't got something to fix it to, that means you then have to dig. So you've got civil works, you've got the big trenches, you've got to lay cabling. The cable has to be armored because it's going underground. and then more importantly you have to have something solid for it to sit on now in history you would dig a hole you'd shutter it with some wood to form a shape and you'd pour wet pour concrete just to make the form and the shape that you want that's fine that's the way it's been done since time immemorial however wet pour concrete then leeches into the ground it's not particularly great for the ground and then you also have um the fact that even the best installers if you if you were doing a series of these concrete pads they'll all be slightly different you won't get a conformity and and when you're talking about an ev charger on a post you want it to be straight and true so it starts with the foundation that you make uh the world has moved on and we've got some fantastic precast concrete out there fantastic brands i think they're fantastic companies precast concrete though you know the smallest version is 71 kilos around about that kind of weight and you know it was something that we we we we had to suffer when we were installers how do you move that and what tends to happen is you tend to have two installation engineers will be saying nothing to see here manually lifting 71 kilos now the uk regs though they're about so manual handling is 20 kilos per person so at 71 it's clearly a breach of the manual handling regulations so our engineers said we must be able to make this out of plastic so we looked at the market and yes there are some plastic ones there but they they they tend to be made from blown polymer um it's not a product like the cube so the plastic one as an example would be 16 or 17 kilos against a precast one in concrete at 70 watt we thought there was room in the middle ground um which is why we use the composite so bmc and smc composites are very dense they're significantly stronger uh strength to weight ratio than steel um and they're very adaptable uh the design that we came up with being modular the heaviest component on it we purposely designed to be 17.8 kilos so we set a bar of 18 so it's a one person installation and one of our best customers for repeat orders is a major car dealer group that happens to have their own ev installation team they buy nothing but our product now and what they tell us in the feedback is their health and safety people are really happy because they know that they're not turning a blind eye to two people lifting 71 kilos anymore and what they're doing is they're only sending now one engineer to site so one engineer goes to site to do the installation so you just think about that in just in in people costs that's significant um and then you multiply that on a weekly basis they're very happy and that's why the ev cube now the channel the the traction for ev cube it is staggering you know we launched uh at the end of september 2025 we're not even in for a year and our current run rate now is around about 6 000 cubes a year which if you had told me that nine months ago i'd have said you were crazy but um you know we've now got cubes going to lots of different parts of the world uh including the americas and also australasia um so the interest in it is really, really good.

13:31It validates that we're not crazy. We had an idea. We've spent a lot of money. We've seen it through. And it's amazing. I sit back and look at it and just think, I'm really proud of it, of course, as you can probably tell. But it's literally the thrill of watching it take off is something that any entrepreneur, any startup business um that's what you're looking for uh and i just can't wait to see what the next three to five years holds and it's going to be an amazing journey for us on the team yeah that is amazing and i bet getting that kind of feedback as well from companies saying like oh this this is really good is probably worth it as well yeah absolutely yeah so how did winning a hustle award make you feel what does that mean for the company it's it's validation for us it was the first it's the first award that we've won um we've been nominated for a couple of awards before this is the first one that we've won uh the judge's comments we were so so proud of when when i read them uh and i've seen some of the stuff on socials where they've commented again you know this is it's a you know this award has it's inherently independent.

14:50And when you read about how it's scored and judged, it really is a good validator. There are some other awards out there that perhaps it's more of a bearing on how much you might spend on advertising, let's say. This is a genuine award, and that makes it worth all the more. And my wife and I, Claire, we sat on the second row at the awards. We sat there because those were the most comfortable seats. that's why we chose them yeah so there was no other other reason than that and um we were genuinely staggered when when you said charge mate we looked at each other and thought what do we do now this has never happened to us before and it was just it was just epic and then just immediately then the pictures were being sent to all of the team here and you know the team that we're building, they're absolutely amazing people.

15:44They're all invested in it. 10 % of our shareholding as a business is reserved for our employees. So everybody has got some skin in the game. And, you know, we work incredible hours and we go the extra mile because we're so proud of it. So to circle completely around winning the award, it's our first, it's our foundation award, really. And we really are so, so proud of it. Yeah, once again, congratulations. I think it's a big thing for us to make sure that we're completely out of the loop. It's the judges judging. And I think as someone who's won, knowing that there were multiple judges kind of voting for you and fighting for you behind the scenes to win is a huge accomplishment.

16:31yeah so going towards the journey of the business now what would you say have been some of the biggest challenges on the journey and how did you manage to overcome them the number one challenge i guess for any startup is financial uh we've bootstrapped the business through its various changes in plans um significant six-figure sum of money which is not very easy to co-op um you know we've looked at each other several times claire and i have thought we're really bonkers at what point does somebody say cut and just go and get a job a normal job like everybody else and then you remind yourself of you know why are we doing this you know we're doing this to build something that has value in the longer term we're building it to create a group of employees who all have a bested interest in the business.

17:28And we genuinely want to help and change the ease at which EV infrastructure can be rolled out. And that's the beauty with this product, is it's more environmentally friendly, it's easier to handle from a manual handling point of view, it's more cost-effective, it's cheaper to fit, and it's much better for the environment, that goes without saying. but it's got longer term over its typical 10-year lifespan has full benefits but anybody who specifies it you can change the covers you can adapt it and then at the end when it's all said and done you can 100 % recycle it as well which is quite a unique proposition in this sector recycling concrete is not really something that's that's mainstream so I think we've really got or something here that is a little bit different.

18:25Yeah, definitely something new for the industry. Yeah. Yeah. So on the flip side of that, what would you say have been some of the biggest highlights? Biggest highlights of the business is looking at some of the brands that have then come on board. The biggest highlight for me so far has been winning the Hustle Award without a shadow of a doubt. winning and the validation that came with that that's number one aside from that, launching the products, getting it to market customer feedback on the product has been exemplary seeing the brand names that are specifying and buying the product wow, and then just seeing the smiles on people's faces here and it's absolutely great, and talking to people you know getting the message out there it's a difficult thing for entrepreneurs and startups to do publicity marketing is expensive especially when it's very hard to attribute what's going where and what return you're getting on your investment you know you're spending the capital what's the roi and many many times we'll look at it you know we've just attended an exhibition at the nec the biggest exhibition we've ever done naturally the most expensive one that we've ever done and and you know i've done a few exhibitions in my career i've never once been able to sit down with a spreadsheet and and justify in any way shape or form that it was worth doing um however you can see the the the um the inertia of the business it's got this momentum and you know we have to be out there we're not quite sure where everything's coming from but we know it's coming from our activity and so we're just determined now the foot's on the floor um and we're just pushing harder and harder just to get the brand the brand and the product awareness as as wide as we can yeah great so what is one lesson or piece of advice that you wish you would have known before starting the company yeah uh if i had a crystal ball um i think with hindsight and no disrespect to our former installation team wouldn't have got involved with the installation side of the business um it's a flippant thing to say really because actually had we not gone through that installation process i wouldn't be sat here today with this range of product because the the the genesis of each of the products that we have has come from conversations about installation so all things happen for a reason we went through that if i had a crystal ball uh fundraising is probably the most tricky thing we've bootstrapped the business ourselves uh i think if i was going to go back to the start and say anything to anybody have a credible plan raising money is easy before you start once you start asking somebody for money then becomes a tricky thing because you've then got history and you generally then think that you only need the money um when you're struggling and and you've got a pinch point and it's amazing how banks don't tend to want to lend at that juncture when you really need it they don't want to lend it to you when you've got a plan on paper they're a bit happier to engage with you so if i had a crystal ball i would go back i would probably have done some match funding considering the amount of money that we've put into the business i i would have already uh you know uh done some bank funding at the start and then my advice to anybody when you're going for funding or any kind of facility always double what you think you need because inevitably you're going to spend it you're going to need it um so if you think you need 50 grand ask for 100 and then just consider that you've only got 50 and keep that other 50 facility away uh some kind of rcf or whatever it is that you go for um yeah there's a lot of um cash flow is the number one not supposed to about the profitability although our products are very profitable uh the issue that i think we have is cash flow and we're constantly investing in the business and at times our enthusiasm overtakes the business's capability of operational cash flow, which is a problem that a lot of entrepreneurs and startups have.

22:54Yeah, I think when you're so invested in your idea as well and you want to keep going and you want to keep growing and it just snowballs itself. A hundred percent, yeah. So you likely mentioned it, but if you had one piece of advice to give to an aspiring founder, what would it be? i would be uh the first thing is brand build a brand patent 100 percent uh ev cube is all about patent we've got some of the great products but they're not patentable so and when you're not patented or you don't have that you know assurance of being uh with a patent you're then subject to volume and margins and competitor so i think uh the advantage that we have if our patent applications are all successful as we hope that they will be a very strong basis which to proceed on and it also helps uh the other reason for the for a patent and the reason why we do a separate gb patent to even everywhere else is the uk government patent box scheme which is quite often overlooked by entrepreneurs.

24:06Obviously, the R &D tax credit scheme is well known. The patent box isn't as well known, but it does work in tandem, which gives you a huge discount on the corporation tax liability from profits derived from your patented product. So I think I would advise anybody to, you know, if you're going to launch something in the market, get your brand right, get your product right, and try and get as much IP across the brand and the product as you possibly can because that's where your future is yeah i think that's great advice because personally i've never heard of the uk government patent box scheme at all go and google it you you will only pay something like 10 uh corporation tax on profits derived from your patentable products and you can backdate it to the date of your original application for patent if if it's granted so it's a win-win all around yeah that that truly is an amazing bit of advice that people can take away from this so what does the future hold for charge mate in yourself do you have any big plans in the pipeline that you can discuss with us well i'm i'm a grandfather now so uh i i want to work less um uh i want to be in control of of when i want to work so i think uh my my My key aim is after Christmas, I'm not going to work Wednesdays anymore.

25:33I think that's a command decision. I've had a lot of working Wednesdays. Wednesdays are going to be a grandparent day. And then I'm going to then stop working on a Friday. So I'm going to ease myself down to three days a week from the middle of next year. I'll have to semi-retire at 5th May next year. and then eventually I'll end up doing a two-day week. I never want to stop, but in the past, especially in the corporate world, I've been traveling to the Far East seven or eight times a year. That's 30s when I started that. It's fantastic to fly business class everywhere and stay in lovely hotels and be entertained.

26:18Once you've done it for a few times, a seat-to-seat on an aircraft, one's a bit more comfortable than another. it's still a 13 hour flight and it's awful let's face it the food isn't that great even if you're lying down so i think i've come to the point now where um i i'm gonna take this two key hires for the business for next year um two key people who are then going to effectively do my job because the business is scaling i've only got one pair of hands and i'm getting on a bit so it's time to hand over to a new team of people so we're looking now and we've been having some conversations so there will be a management change in charge mate next year i'll still be here title of vice president or something like that and i'll just sit in the background and helps the supply chain and some of the relationships but i'm going to hand it over to a younger team they will all be invested in the business of course because we have the shareholding and then we've got some more innovation in product um i can't tell you what that is yet because it's subject to patents but we've got a very very interesting product that we will be launching uh hopefully at the nec uh on the 22nd of september i think so watch this space you will see it in a blaze all over social media um that's going to come out i'm going to stop talking about it because I'll say something that and Lloyd are going to go mad at me so um well yeah that number one excited to see the new products that you can't quite talk about yet but number two that sounds really exciting for your own life and I think that's the thing is a lot of people think about being your own boss and that you can kind of take that time but I think the reality for a lot of people is they get so caught up in building something but it's nice that you've gone I'm going to build it I'll take a back seat because I have my own life I'm I want to look after grandkids and do my own thing yeah yeah I think you know we like to take our family away once a year everybody gets together it's so important you only get one chance on this earth so you've got to make the best of it and you know we're well traveled but I still haven't been to South America and I've not been to Australasia yet so there's two places that I really want to go and spend some time there while I'm still able.

28:48I don't want to turn into a grumpy OAP who I wish I would have because I think there'll come a point where even with the best seat in the air, you're not going to want to do a journey where you're in the air for 30 or 40 hours to get somewhere. Absolutely not. So we've got to go and get rid of the rest of the travelling bug, pick off the places that we haven't been, all the bucket list stuff, And then I'll just be sat here watching the business, guiding it, advising. But really, I think it's time for other people next year to take their business on to the next level. Amazing. That sounds really exciting.

29:29So to round off the podcast episode, is there anything that you wanted to add or plug? Wow. Anything to add or plug? No. I would just plug anybody out there who's an entrepreneur, put yourself up for a Hustle Award. I really would recommend that you do it. We'll be there next year. We're going to apply again. I'm sure we will have our new product in September. So we'll be coming back to try and win it again. We're not going to rest on our laurels, but I would definitely say absolutely as much validation and recognition as you can get is vital for entrepreneurs. It keeps your spirit up. You know, Claire and I were thrilled.

30:12You know, it's nice to come to London, but it was much nicer to walk away with the award and a nice bottle of champagne on a warm evening in London was amazing. Yes, a very warm evening. You know, you've plugged the Hustle Awards probably better than I could have. It's like I've flipped you a tenner. well Julian thank you so much for coming on the podcast today it's been great to speak with you and learn more about charge mate as well as your own journey absolute pleasure Anna we look forward to seeing you again next year yes look forward to seeing you soon and once again congratulations on the win thank you very much appreciate it thank you bye bye if you like this episode be sure to subscribe to the podcast and check out startup magazine socials to stay up to date on the latest startups news.